Thanks for the Strip Malls

Why this outpouring of warmth? Well, Bob Hope’s development company La Mancha can take at least some credit for making southern California what it is today — they built the first mini mall and followed it up with thousands more.

Eicher also points out that the USO scion was the “golf buddy” of Nazi collaborator and presidential progenitor Prescott Bush. (This is a strange piece of trivia for the Internet Movie Database to highlight since Hope was actually the golf buddy of every president, even if it was only the Republicans who invited him to stay at the Lincoln bedroom).

Back in May, Couch Pundit discussed an episode of This American Life with a segment on Bob Hope. [real audio — the part on Hope is about 35 minutes in]. It focuses on his role in the USO as a particualry shrewd business move, with each taxpayer-funded special getting sold to NBC. The recorded interviews by Margy Rochlin were from 1986, so at one point Hope runs through his “Iran-Contra” bit:

“I dunno who the White House aides were, it was either Curly, Larry, or Moe.”